Prepyrolysis Structural Relaxation of Coal Studied by Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Solvent Swelling

Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and solvent swelling technique have been applied for identifying physical transition temperatures in the macromolecular structure of coals. The transition processes seem to be associated with physical relaxation of the coal structure and are irreversible processes. In Pittsburgh No. 8 high volatile bituminous (hvb) coat one physical transition was noted at 250-30$0^{\circ}C$ (at 8$^{\circ}C$/min) without any significant accompanying weight loss. Coals of higher rank than high volatile bituminous, i.e., Upper Freeport medium volatile bituminous (mvb) and Pocahontas No.3 low volatile bituminous (lvb) coals, exhibit structural relaxation just before the major thermal decomposition process and a sharp increase in solvent swellability accompanies this relaxation. In the case of both the Pittsburgh No.8 and the Upper Freeport coat structural relaxations at around 36$0^{\circ}C$ seem to coincide with release of "guest molecules".les".uot;.